The present invention relates to a cartridge-holder locking device for a magnetooptical disk player and, more particularly, to a locking device which locks/unlocks a cartridge holder, one side of which is rotatably installed on the deck of a magnetooptical disk player.
The development of 64 mm diameter magnetooptical disk cartridges (commercially referred to as "minidisks") has been under way since the minidisk was first introduced (by Sony of Japan). A portable minidisk player (Sony model MZ-1) for recording and playback operations is currently on the market. The player has a slot into which a minidisk is inserted. A minidisk cartridge is loaded onto the deck of the player by the driving force of a motor, with the shutter of the cartridge being moved aside to open a communicating aperture, and is mounted on a turntable rotated by a spindle motor.
In general, it is desirable that a portable player be as light and as small as possible, allow the rapid insertion/extraction of a disk cartridge, and have a very low rate of power consumption. However, due to the specific construction of the insertion means, i.e., via a slot, the Sony minidisk player has a complicated structure for insertion/extraction of the cartridge. Further, due to the use of a motor, it is difficult to miniaturize and reduce the weight of the player and to speed up the inserting and extracting operations. That is, the motorized apparatus, which is used to insert and/or draw out the minidisk, increases the player's overall power consumption. Accordingly, battery power is not efficiently utilized.